Achaemenid Seals: East and West
Abstract
The use of personal seals, long employed for administrative purposes in Mesopotamia, was continued under the Achaemenids, but the imagery changed substantially, reflecting the artistic program of the royal court. Large numbers of surviving cylinder and stamp seals, along with the many seal impressions on the Persepolis Fortification and Treasury Tablets (509–458 BCE), provide a significant body of material for analysis. In addition, there are numerous stamp seals produced in the western part of the empire, very likely at Sardis and perhaps elsewhere in Asia Minor. This paper will survey the surviving material with particular attention to the possible meaning of images and consider the relationship to contemporary Greek gems.
Citation
Spier, Jeffrey. "Achaemenid Seals: East and West." Pourdavoud Center: The World of Ancient Iran and the West (May 19, 2022).
About the Speaker
Jeffrey Spier
J. Paul Getty Museum
After completing a DPhil at Merton College, Oxford, Jeffrey Spier taught classical archaeology at University College London and the University of Arizona before joining the J. Paul Getty Museum as Anissa and Paul John Balson II Senior Curator of Antiquities in 2014. Before coming to the Getty, he curated exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne (San Marco and Venice) and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth (Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art). He has published on many aspects of Greek art and iconography, gems and jewelry, numismatics, early Christian and Byzantine art, ancient magic, and the history of collecting. At the Getty, he has curated and contributed to the catalogues for the exhibitions Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World (Getty Publishers 2018), Rubens: Picturing Antiquity (Getty Publishers 2021), and Persia: Ancient Iran and the Classical World (Getty Publishers 2022).